The Life and Times of Tom Judd

Chapter 1

Battle Ships and Guns

My favorite picture of my father is of him standing in an open field of sage brush and rocks with a giant mountain behind him. He was standing where our house would be built on the foot hills of the Wasatch mountain range in Salt Lake City Utah. I grew up in that pink cinder block house that my parents built in 1956. Everything was great until we moved to Winnetka Illinois, a suburb of Chicago where my father got a job for one year organizing the 1960 republican convention that an nominated Richard Nixon. I was 7 years old and enrolled in Hubert Woods’s elementary school. It was immediately clear that I was not going to cut it at Hubert Woods. I was supposed to transfer to the 3rd grade but I was failing to understand anything they put in front of me. What was most terrifying was the worried looks on all of the adult faces. They put me in a second grade class and sent me to a remedial reading course after school in someone’s dark living room with adults who couldn’t read. My conclusion was, “I’m screwed and I’m going to be an artist”. I was really good at drawing pictures, so that is what I did. I would spend hours drawing battle ships with thousands of guns with a pencil on cream colored construction paper. The other kids loved them. So at 7 years of age, I decided this was all I ever wanted to do.

Chapter 2

Prequel

My Mom met my Dad in Panama during World War II. She was one of the first Pan Am stewardesses; she flew between Miami and Panama City where my Dad was a captain in the Army Air corp. They got married right after the war and moved to a dusty little town in southern Utah called Mt. Pleasant.


My father, Tom Judd, Sr., bought the Mount Pleasant Pyramid, the town weekly newspaper 
and wrote a column for it called Tom Foolery. This was a dream come true for my father but 
my mother would later refer to Mt. Pleasant
As “misery spelled backwards.” The family lived in a tiny apartment over the local drug store. After a couple of years of Mt. Pleasant the family moved back east to Lawrenceville, NJ where Dad got a “real job” with an Advertising agency. Soon thereafter I was born as the middle child of four siblings.

We later moved back to Salt Lake City and my Dad found work for a big Insurance company. He did a great job of supporting his family and never complained about not being able to follow his passion to write. But I always had the sense he was a guy walking around with unfulfilled dreams.

It is said that sons compare themselves to their fathers -- often competitively. And there are times, low moments, when my choosing the artist's life might seem like "Tom Foolery". 
But then there are days when I get to the studio early in the morning and realize I have the whole day to make paintings and be an artist. 
My Dad’s inspiration and support over the years has helped me now see that the opportunities in our lives are often rooted in those who come before us. And maybe, somehow, this dream of mine is lived... for the both of us.

Chapter 3


Yes, Sometimes There Are Birds 
In My Paintings

One year I asked for a pellet gun for Christmas. In Utah everyone has a gun. The schools actually close for deer hunting season.


My family was not the gun or hunting type. My father didn’t even fish. So my parents were a little mystified that I wanted a gun of any sort.

Christmas came on a beautiful white Christmas morning. The mountains were brilliant with snow and the clouds hung low hiding the peaks. So before breakfast I dashed out the door into the silent winter morning and headed into the grove of cottonwood trees next to our house. I immediately spotted a Robin perched on a branch just twenty feet away. I pointed my new rifle and pulled the trigger. The bird fell to the ground. It lay still, blood spattered on the white snow. I stared down in horror, quickly covering the bird with snow and running back to the house.


I joined the family at the breakfast table. There was a lot of laughing and good cheer in the air and I didn’t mention to anyone about the bird. The new pellet gun was retired, relegated to a corner of our basement to collect dust and years later sold at a garage sale.